I'm a language grad and a student language teacher, and in my spare time I learn languages. I have a special interest in minority languages and as a former IT professional I am particularly interested in where human and computer meet.

08 November 2008

Every now and then I do a little hunt for useful services on the net, and today I found one: livestation.com . This site runs a peer-to-peer TV streaming service. Unlike many legitimate online video sites, this is TV as it's broadcast, not videos on demand. The quality is high, and so far I've not had any problems with juddering.

There isn't a wide choice of channels, but at least there's a wide choice of channels. Alongside several English-language channels, you've got Euronews in 7 languages, France24 in French and Arabic and Russia Today in Arabic.

It's worth downloading, even if you're only going to use it once or twice.

WARNING: peer-to-peer technology means that you are sending files to other people as well as receiving them. Using this for a long time may cost you if you're on a metered rate (such as 3G mobile internet) and even if you're not, you may hit a limit on your account. If in doubt, make sure to log out when you're not using it.